Interaction of forensic and general psychiatric services in Ireland: learning the lessons or repeating the mistakes?

Abstract

Objective:General psychiatric bed numbers in Ireland have reduced markedly in recent decades. In other jurisdictions such reductions have been accompanied by increases in the prevalence rates of severe mental illness among prisoners. We examined variations in per capita provision of local psychiatric beds and community residential places in Ireland for associations with forensic psychiatric service utilisation.Method:All admissions via the courts and prisons to the national forensic psychiatry service during the years 1997-1999 were assigned to the appropriate health board. Forensic admission and bed utilisation rates were compared with measures of general psychiatric service provision.Results:There were 476 admissions via the criminal justice system during the study period (0.74% of all psychiatric admissions in Ireland). A disproportionate number came from the most urbanised area. There were fivefold differences in overall bed and hostel place allocation between Irish health boards. Combined general psychiatric beds were inversely correlated with forensic bed utilisation (Spearman r = -0.75, p = 0.013). These differences showed a strong inverse correlation with forensic service utilisation.Conclusions:General psychiatric services are relatively under-resourced in areas of greatest predicted need in Ireland. This is associated with increased use of forensic psychiatric services and may reflect accumulation of the mentally ill in Irish prisons.

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“…The high ARR of being a non-abusing forensic patient among Iranian men and Eastern European females is related to the high ARR of becoming a forensic patient among these two groups. It is often said that the increasing number of schizophrenic offenders is related to an increasing substance abuse among schizophrenic patients (17), but in accordance with other studies (18,19), our findings clearly indicate that reasons other than substance abuse, for instance, the insufficient treatment of schizophrenic patients in the era of deinstitutionalization (20,21), are the main explanations for the increasing number of schizophrenic forensic patients seen in many countries (22,23).…”

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